Been walkabouts

Haven't played online for over a week and will probably not play during February. I am hoping that the break will clear my head a little and let me think through some deeper strategy. I'd like to get back into posting on 2+2 and watching some of the Stoxpoker videos.

So what else have I been up to. Well, I have been playing a few live games which I hope to continue. With 200 hands max in a session, it is very prone to variance. The Friday night home games have been tough. Last night my flopped set went down to a river, river straight. Not unusual as it is very rare to win a big pot without showdown. I lost $15 which felt really good because I had bought in again for another $100 about an hour previous when I was down over $200 (mainly thx to my set getting sucked out on late in the session after being patient. I loosened up considerably after that as I've always been a reasonable short-stacker.

The pub games haven't been going so good. They don't really suit my style as the blinds go up too quickly. On Tuesday, I had A5 on a flop of 533. Thought I might be good but opponent had flopped quads - out 4th hand.

Tonight is a bit of a crazy night. While we have been having terrible bushfires in Victoria, Sydney has had a number of consecutive rainy days mid-summer after our own mini heatwave. My wife is overseas, so my daughter thought that she'd have a party with 70 of her friends. Big softie agreed and now with the inclement weather has even offered to partition off some of our office and be the only bouncer. Thankfully, I grew up in Belfast.

So far so good, my daughter set down the rules early (I'm the other side of the partitions watching for intrusions and monitoring the hype levels). It's approaching 9pm, so I only have another 3 hours to go, touch wood.

This week I am off to Melbourne overnight so I will probably hit Crown casino. I just had my best result ever about a week ago running $80 up to $850 before losing a couple of hundred on my final handon a TJQ4c board, I had the K and was All In and my opponent took forever to call. When he hesitated I knew I was good as it was his first time in a casino. So I wanted a call. The old adage, be careful what you hope for. Anyone else, it would have been the worst slowroll ever as he had the Ace. To his credit, he was being straight up and I'd stacked him before, he was concerned abouth the Kc9c. Fair play to him.

Party Update: Luckily needed the toilet and went in to find an alcohol fueled pigsty. Got someone to clean that up and then sprung a few others drinking openly and a few more bags containing quite a bit of alcohol. Found the owners and ejected them. An over-zealous British backpacker misunderstood me and took on the role of bouncer, evicting everyone. Actually worked out well as most wanted to come back in and were happy to turn in their alcohol. It was funny to be party of an amnesty and the kids that were left handed over heaps. The potential trouble makers have thankfully headed to an open house in Northbridge whose parents have gone to Armidale for the weekend. Another teenager in trouble Sunday night, I suspect. Party is now back in full swing by 10pm and a number of the kids have come to me and said it is muc more fun this time.

Back to poker, happy to be back blogging. Enjoyed catching up with the Blindman's Telesina fun, Laff's wins and BCG's steady climb up the charts like the Beatles. Jesse's move from Oracle to Hold'em proves to me that its possible, his blog also lets me know how much I still have to learn. And last but not least, Adam still cracks me up.